Zed Nelson

Zed Nelson

I chose to look at the work of Zed Nelson who exhibition I viewed at the Light Infantry Museum a few weeks ago.  He was capturing people’s vanity and preoccupation with themselves. He did this by looking at lots of different areas over a period of time and also across world cultures. He took images of cosmetic surgeons at work and their patients. Other areas included anorexics, child beauty queens, bodybuilders, trainee models, housewives, porn stars and people having breast implants.

The image he took of a ‘tummy tuck’ looks horrific to me.

The colour has the most impact as you realise its blood and an open abdomen.  I think this image in particular is out to shock. Why have major surgery when eating less and exercising would be a natural way to reduce your size. Nelson is out to show how some individuals are obsessed with body image enough to have surgery.  While thinking about this image I also realise there is a surgeon out there happy to make money doing what is not really essential surgery.

I don’t know if permission was given by the patient to have this image taken but its obvious from the background it’s in a surgical theatre. In some of his other images people seem willing to be photographed. I’m not sure I would if I was having something like this done. Some of the cosmetic surgery is quite private and almost seems an invasion into participants privacy.

His images show the subject frailties and insecurities

We all have these insecurities, you only need to take a look at Facebook for example to see the images people present of themselves